The Potter's Hand Foundation

Hello friends,

It surely is a busy and blessed time for this ministry I am called to here in Peru.

First I was blessed to serve on a one week mission to serve the spiritual and physical needs of the poor with my friends of Medical Ministry International down in Ica.

This is another of the amazing places I have been to here in this beautiful and dramatic country. Ica is a very dry, desert region to the south just east of the Pacific ocean and west of the Andes mountains. The day before our actual mission began our visiting team of volunteers (from the US, Canada, Germany and Peru) went into the sand dunes via dune buggies. Then most went sand boarding down the face of steep dunes. After this a rest in an Oasis area near a small lagoon. A great day of new and reacquainted friendships.

Click on the fotos.

I was the camera keeper for everyone, both to protect them from the sand and take fotos for everyone so I didn’t go boarding!!

Then on Monday we began our service to the poor of this area. We were helped by small local churches, some folks from Compassion International and others. It was a blessed week and went by very quickly. This was my second MMI mission of the year.

Now, as I am back in Lima the next major milestone for me is that our 4th annual shipment of our Reliv Now For Kids nutritional supplements from our Reliv Kalogris Foundation in St Louis, Missouri is here and working its way through the Peruvian Customs processes. The shipment arrived on June 4th and it should be released to me any day now. The real excitement for me is that this shipment is 25% greater than last year. This equates to more children which we will be able to provide this wonderful blessing too.

Soon I will begin a new program with some indigenous tribal people in the jungle, the Ashenincas. This a different tribal community than the Ashaninkas I am already providing our programs too. This is possible because of my relationship with a missionary group named Segadores, which is acting as our local site coordinators for these native peoples. I am looking forward to traveling into the jungle with my friends soon and beginning to help these new children. More stories and fotos about this another time.

I wish to mention again that our ministry here in Peru has grown from our wonderful nutritional products and feeding programs for children in need and at risk in the Andes mountains and into the Amazon jungle. We are now providing simple, portable water purification systems for each program and into the homes of the villages we serve, parasite medications for the families of each village, integrated health education and spiritual and family counseling.

Serving the poor in their area of greatest needs and soon, in partnerships with other local caregivers we hope to help children with better educational opportunities so that they may build themselves a better future. We believe in empowerment and helping the poor help themselves and their children.

At present we are serving in 6 departementos (states) of Peru and soon into two more. All of these areas are in remote villages in the Andes and in the jungles with the exception of a few here in the shantytowns surrounding Lima.

So I invite you to clink on the link below and, as our Lord teaches us, prayerfully consider becoming a part of our ministry and partner with us as we serve Him and His children. I am very grateful to those who are helping and partnering with us now as what we have accomplished to date would otherwise not have been possible to achieve. I am very blessed and excited about our future of service here in Peru. It has been and always will be an incredible journey of faith and I have grown and learned much. Please click here-  Please join us in service!

In His name we serve,

Taylor

I have returned to Lima from my 4 day journey to Arequipa where I visited three of our nutritional feeding programs for children. Two are orphanages for abandoned special needs children and one is a small Inicial school program (like a Kindercare) in Sacsayhuaman, in the Canon del Colca.

All of the children are doing great and we will continue these programs at least through 2011. Again I am grateful to our Reliv Kalogris Foundation (click on link) in St Louis, Mo for providing these wonderful nutritional supplemental products for children to The Potters Hand Foundation so that we may continue to serve the children here in Peru.

I am very pleased to announce we will soon begin a new program for special needs children in Tiabaya, Arequipa. This program will be for 26 little ones and I had visited this Hogar de Ninos Especiale last year.

These are two of the children in the Hogar de Ninos Epeciale! Click on the fotos for a better view!

I was also introduced to other ministries in Arequipa that I hope to work with in the coming year in developing more programs. I wish to expand and develop programs into more remote villages here in the Andes mountains.

This weekend, on Sunday here in Lima I will be visiting another program in Huachipa with our local Rotary Club members for a Christmas fiesta with Panetone and chocolate caliente. While I am there I will be meeting with the nutritionist and evaluating the children’s progress with our nutritional program. These are children from 3 to 5 years young. Last quarter they all had shown good progress in their overall health and the little ones who were more malnourished are thriving now.

Also on Sunday evening I will be traveling by bus (unless I am blessed with a small truck to use) to Ayacucho and Apurimac to visit 5 more nutritional programs. This adventure will take a full week before I return to Lima.

More about this adventure as it unfolds and as any opportunity to get messages out will allow.

Bendiciones a todos,

Taylor

Sunday, November 21, 2010

I am pleased to present this new format for the Monthly (or approximately) newsletter for The Potters Hand Foundation. Actually this is a practice version and I would be happy for some constructive comments on this effort.

At present I have just returned from my 8th mission of the year serving the poor with my friends from Medical Ministry International. A one week mission down in Cusco, Peru where we served the spiritual and physical needs of the poor. Also in the morning I will join another MMI mission here in Lima for another week. This is a physical therapy mission in PomplonaAlta, a very poor area on the outskirts of this city.

By the first of December I expect to begin traveling to visit all 16 of the nutritional feeding programs we have been blessed to establish for close to 500 children in 5 departementos(states) here in Peru. This is so that I can enjoy the children and spend quality time with them and with each of our program coordinators. I will also be preparing my final report of the year to the Reliv Kalogris Foundation, which is providing our wonderful nutritional products for these long term programs.

After completing my travels I will be preparing to share my 7thChristmas with the children of The Posada de Amor outside of Lima, where this God given adventure and service to the children of Peru began for me back in 2003.

Then I will be very happy to come home to the states for some R&R and to visit family and friends. I will arrive in Miami on the evening of the 28thof December. My last visit back home was in February of this year.

It has been a wonderful blessing and quite a God given and directed ministry to serve the children and the poor of Peru. I pray for our Lord’s continued blessing, direction and provision as it is my hope to continue to reach out to more of His little ones here in the Amazon jungle and into the remote Andes.

Please check out our website photo link for more information and the many photo albums which will provide a wonderful pictorial storyline of our missions and the wonderful people who live here in Peru.

So I will close for now and I will be sure to provide another newsletter in late December before I return home to Florida.

God Bless,
Taylor

04 de enero 2010

Love- without counting the costs!

Hello everyone!

Well it is a new year and a new Decade. I have been looking back a bit at how this journey began for me here in Peru some years back. My first visit to Peru was in 2003 with a mission team from my church, Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Gardens, Sunny Florida. That trip changed my life. So I came back a year later with my church and also again at Christmas time on my first personal journey here. I have just spent my 6th Christmas with the children of the Posada de Amor and again it was a wonderful experience. I don’t claim it totally for myself as I was also representing others back home who have been here with these kids and who helped make this Christmas possible.

I also can look back at how my small dream to “feed a few kids” here in Peru has grown, thanks to God and a wonderful group of folks with Reliv International, the Reliv Kalogris Foundation, all my friends who believed in me and supported me with prayer and funds. Also my wonderful friends with Medical Ministry International here in Peru. So now, with my own Potters Hand Foundation and with me blessed to serve as International Area Coordinator for Peru for the Reliv Kalogris Foundation and with the help of local Peruvians who are a part of all this, we have 10 feeding programs serving 291 children in different areas of this beautiful but poor country. With the hope to grow and serve more children in need and at risk, especially in the high Andes mountains and in the Amazon jungle.

I wish now to acknowledge my greatest gift and the reason I was able to “get out of the boat” and take this journey. That gift is my faith though Christ. That I could walk away from everything back home to begin this journey without knowing the outcome, or even where I would live, and how this God given dream could come to be. Every time I have taken each first step of faith God has been faithful to guide me and provide. It has not been easy but it has been grand. Even now I am working to form a Peruvian ONG- The Potters Hand- Peru, where I can continue this ministry and expand on it as I look for other opportunities to add to our feeding programs with other means to serve the children of Peru. Again I can not see the whole picture but I will continue to walk in faith, trusting in His love.

I wish to add one of my favorite scriptures and a story.

Call to me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

Swings give a feeling of weightlessness- for a few moments you bypass the laws of gravity. For a few moments you FLY!
Dreams do much the same thing. Dreams crash the confines of what is and what has been.
As our minds dare to see the unseen, our imagination fuels our faith and we begin to trust God for something more.
Some folks are afraid to dream. But connected to God, it is safe to dream. There is freedom to let FAITH take WINGS.
Alicia Britt Chole- Pure Joy

Now I am looking forward to coming home to the states for the month of February. For a rest, to see my friends and church family in Florida, to go to Phoenix for a conference with Reliv International and our Reliv Kalogris Foundation. And a very special treat for me will be to visit with my son in Telluride, Colorado after conference. It has been too long since we last had a chance to catch up on things.

Son, does this mean I will see a lot of snow? Can’t wait to share an adventure with you!

En El Nombre de Cristo with love,
Taylor
www.pottershandfoundation.org
www.relivkalogrisfoundation.org

“Little children, let us stop saying we love people;
let us really love them, and show it by our actions.”
1 John 3:18 (LB)

21 de diciembre 2009
Love – without counting costs

Hello everyone and a very Merry Christmas to all!

I am soon on my way to have Christmas with 52 children in the remote village of Vito in the high Andean mountains of Peru. A foto of some of the kids is at the top of this letter. This will be my second trip to see these kids and they are now one of the nutritional feeding programs that is provided by the Reliv Kalogris Foundation. I am blessed to be here to serve the children of Peru and also to be a part of this wonderful foundation that is providing nutritional products to thousands of children daily in many countries around the world. And it is my great blessing to be the hands and feet for this program here in Peru. This is probably the most unique Christmas I will have ever experienced as I will again live with these people for a few days and share their lives far away from the outside world.

Also after I return to Lima I will be blessed to share my sixth Christmas here with the children of the Posada de Amor in Cieneguilla, outside of Lima. Friends from back home have contributed funds for this celebration and we will have gifts for all the kids and a great fiesta. So I wish to thank those friends very much for making this Christmas possible for the kids.

I also want to remember Roseann Sacco who passed away recently and who loved these children very much. We will have many memories of Roseann to share with the kids who loved her at the Posada.

So to everyone I wish to extend my wishes to all of you and your families a very Merry celebration of the birth of Jesus. He is the reason for the season.

Until next time I am off on another grand God given adventure.

To Taylor Scott Benson- I love you son!! Merry Christmas

En El Nombre de Cristo with love,
Taylor

“Little children, let us stop saying we love people;
let us really love them, and show it by our actions.”
1 John 3:18 (LB)